Commenting on today’s A-level results in England, Geoff Barton,
General Secretary of the Association of School and College
Leaders, said:
“While there has been an overall increase in top grades, we
are very concerned that this disguises a great deal of volatility
among the results at school and student level.
“We have received heartbreaking feedback from school
leaders about grades being pulled down in a way that they feel to
be utterly unfair and unfathomable. They are extremely concerned
about the detrimental impact on their students.
“They worked very hard to provide accurate grades to the
exam boards, carefully following all the guidance, and are
dismayed that the statistical model then used to standardise
these grades has had such a devastating impact. This is in terms
of both the number of grades lowered, and some students’ results
being pulled down by more than one grade.
“We will be working to understand more about what has
happened, but our immediate impression is that the statistical
process has proved to be far too blunt an instrument and has
created clear injustices.
“We have always accepted that some form of standardisation
was needed to provide consistency, and we recognise that this was
never going to be easy. But the education system is not a
statistical model, it is a collection of individuals, and we fear
the process has lacked this important degree of nuance.
“We are now calling on the government and the exam
regulator Ofqual to review the situation as a matter of urgency,
and we would warn them against simply digging in their heels, and
insisting all is well.
“It is not sufficient for the government to dismiss these
concerns by saying that schools and colleges can attempt to
battle their way through the appeals process, or that students
who are not satisfied can enter the autumn exam series some seven
to eight months after they finished their courses, and are no
longer at the centre where they studied.
“We have done everything we possibly can to support the
grading process in difficult circumstances, but there is a time
to say enough is enough.”
